1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns a method to install an electrical component and its contacts on a support, such as an identification or bank card; it also concerns the product obtained by the implementation of this method.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Identification or identity cards are used in many fields, especially in the field of bank cards or credit cards. However, for a long time, apart from an identification number and the bearer's number, these cards have had only a magnetic recording enabling identification by magnetic reading. For many years now, these cards have been used for other functions than for identifying the bearer and, especially, for prepayment and protection against fraudulent activities. To this end, the card has an active electronic component which may consist of an electronic memory which may or may not be associated with a microprocessor, thus enabling its use especially for banking type applications.
Prior art cards, which have an electronic component are manufactured in various ways. According to a first method, a cavity is made in the thickness of the card to accommodate the electronic component. According to another method, known as "co-lamination", thin layers of plastic material as an epoxy material, polyethylene, polyvinylchloride etc. are laminated around the component. During the implementation of these methods, various other operations are further performed to connect the terminals of the electronic component electrically with metallizations placed on the surface of the card.
One method used to install the electronic component in the cavity made in the card and to place metallizations on the card as well as to make the connections between the terminals of the card and the metallizations consists, as shown in FIG. 1, in the use of a non-conductive film 1, made of an epoxy material, for example. This film has, on one side, the electronic component in the form of a chip (reference 2) and, on the other side, metallized surfaces such as those marked 3, 4 and 5 separated from one another by spaces 6 and 7 without metallization. These metallized surfaces 3, 4 and 5 communicate with the other side of the film 1 by means of holes 8, 9 and 10 through which the ends of the conducting wires 11, 12 and 13 are connected with the corresponding metallized surfaces by any known means such as a conductive bonder. The other end of each conducting wire is connected to an output terminal 14, 15 or 16 of the chip 2.
These operations are then followed by the coating of the chip 2 with resin and curing of the resin, by heat, to encapsulate the chip. The chip can then be installed in the cavity of the card and metallizations can be placed at the edge of the cavity by simply fitting in the chip and bonding the support film 1 to the card after it has been cut out to the requisite dimensions.
The method which has just been briefly described above has the following drawback: the film 1 and the bonder used to hold the metallizations 3, 4 and 5 cannot withstand temperatures of more than than 150.degree. C. The result thereof is a considerable increase in the time needed to cure the resin used to encapsulate the chip 2. This is costly, especially in an automatic manufacturing line.
An object of the present invention, therefore, is to overcome the above-mentioned drawbacks by the application of a method for installing an electronic component and its electrical connections on a support enabling higher curing temperature for the coating resin, thus giving a shorter curing time and, therefore, lower costs.